Plenty Of Peaches In Porter

The town of Porter is gearing up for their annual peach festival this weekend. Festival organizers pride themselves on serving local peaches. But months of drought in northeastern Oklahoma have taken

Wednesday, July 12th 2006, 10:25 am

By: News On 6

The town of Porter is gearing up for their annual peach festival this weekend. Festival organizers pride themselves on serving local peaches. But months of drought in northeastern Oklahoma have taken a toll on the fuzzy fruit.

News on 6 reporter Ashli Sims visited Porter and talked with a major supplier of the festival. He says despite the weather, they'll be peaches a â€˜plenty.

In Porter there are all kinds of peaches ready to be picked. "Yeah, you feel em and if they got a little bit of give to em but you donâ€™t want to much. 'Cause then they'll be ripe too soon. And they'll all come ripe together so then you'll have to deal with em all at once. So you kinda space em out.â€ Mary Ann Welker and her friends have made the trip to Livesay Orchards three times already this season. Lynn Tennant: "I put sugar and heavy cream on em and just eat em, we go through about 12 a day.â€

But picking days have been slim this year. The drought forced Livesay Orchard to cut back.â€ And the dry weather has reduced the yield substantially because its reduced the size of the peaches and of course it takes more of them to fill the bushel baskets." Kent Livesay is still hoping for some more rain, but he says there might be a bit of a bright side to the drought.

What the peaches lack in size, they make up for in flavor. "With a little less water in the fruit it does have a real good flavor.â€

The Porter Peach Festival is this Friday and Saturday. The big giveaway, free peaches and ice cream, happens Saturday at 1 PM.